Yankees left-hander Nestor Cortes avoided arbitration on Friday night by agreeing to a $2.3 million contract for 2023, according to several reports.
Cortes then delivered an emotional message on Twitter: “It’s a special day for my family and me. Specially my parents. Sacrificed so much for the “American dream”. Always put me ahead of their needs. For EVERYONE keep grinding and stay hungry. This is the start! No matter what comes next.”
While being a surprise story of last season — but playing in the shadow of slugger Aaron Judge’s American League record 62 home runs, Cortes was 14-4 with a 2.44 ERA. He even received a pair of American League Cy Young votes, finishing eighth. He threw 158 1/3 innings — when his previous MLB career-best had been 93 innings the year before.
After unexpectedly earning a starting job out of spring training, Cortes earned his first All-Star appearance, was 1-0 in the postseason and earned a spot on Team USA in the World Baseball Classic, which will be played in March.
“I guess it’s no secret that this was an amazing season for me and I think for anybody who could have thrown what I did this year,” Cortes said to Meredith Marakovits of the YES Network in December. “I think anybody would have been happy with the success that I had.”
Now that the Yankees have added free-agent pitcher Carlos Rodon, Cortes is part of an even more imposing rotation that includes Gerrit Cole, Luis Severino and Frankie Montas. Cortes’ goal is to give the Yankees even more consistency.
“I think the biggest hurdle was to get to 100-plus innings,” Cortes said, “and I think this go-around is to get to 200 innings. That’s going to be my biggest goal, to pitch more innings than what I did last year. Obviously try to be as healthy as I can for the full year, and I think everything else will come. Whether it’s the ERA (and) lowering it or striking out more people or allowing less baserunners on, I think that all comes in hand with being healthy. I think if I’m healthy, I’m able to do that again.”
Only second baseman Gleyber Torres will head to arbitration. Torres filed at $10.2M; Yankees filed at $9.7M. Here are the others who agreed to terms, according to reports by Mark Feinsand, Bryan Hoch and Jon Heyman and MLBTradeRumors.com:
- Wandy Peralta (5.168) $3.35M agreement
- Frankie Montas (5.015): $7.5M agreement
- Isiah Kiner-Falefa (5.000): $6M agreement in November
- Lou Trivino (4.163): $4.1M agreement in November
- Gleyber Torres (4.162) No agreement reached, will exchange figures
- Clay Holmes (4.031): $3.3M agreement
- Jonathan Loaisiga (4.022) $2.26M agreement
- Domingo German (4.017) $2.6M agreement
- Kyle Higashioka (4.005): $1.4625M agreement
- Nestor Cortes (3.094): $3.2M agreement
- Jose Trevino (3.063): $2.36M agreement
- Michael King (3.004) $1.3M agreement
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